UPDATE 3-Canada imposes further delays on two major pipeline projects

(Adds quotes and reaction, greenhouse gas implications)
By Randall Palmer and Leah Schnurr
OTTAWA, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Canada announced new interim
rules on Wednesday for environmental reviews that will impose
delays on two projects - TransCanada Corp 's TRP.TO Energy East
pipeline and Kinder Morgan (N:KMI) Inc's KMI.N expansion of its Trans
Mountain Pipeline.
The Liberal government issued the rules on the grounds that
public trust needed to be restored in the process for assessing
big energy projects.
Proponents say that after U.S. President Barack Obama's
denial of the Keystone XL pipeline, all-Canadian projects are
needed so the country's oil can reach its east and west coasts
and fetch higher prices abroad.
"All we're saying here is that Canadians deserve to have
trust in their environmental assessment process or else no
projects will go ahead," Environment Minister Catherine McKenna
told a news conference.
"That doesn't mean that no project is going to go ahead, it
just means we have to do a proper review because this is the
21st century and that is the way you get resources to market."
The rules are designed to take greater account of
environmental impacts and indigenous groups' view for the two
pipelines, which are opposed by environmentalists and some
communities but backed by industry.
McKenna also said the government would separately calculate
direct and upstream greenhouse gas emissions linked to the
projects.
She declined to explain how much weight would be given to
the climate change effects, saying there would be no maximum
fixed for each project, and she said it would only be one of
many factors the government would take into account in
determining whether a project was in the national interest.
She said no existing project would be required to go back to
square one.
The rules push back the deadline for the government to
decide on Trans Mountain to December 2016 from August, with a
review by the national energy regulator still to be done by May.
Ottawa extended the period for the regulator's review and
subsequent government decision of the Energy East pipeline to 27
months from the currently mandated 18 months.
Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said the
province's ability to access energy markets is "crucial."
"If these new rules will allow the issues to be heard and
then to get to a decision, then they will have helped the
process," she stated.
TransCanada said it needed time to review the rules but
supported delivering resources to market in the "safest and most
environmentally sound way possible."